ASUS MeMO Pad 7 Review: Intel Bay Trail Inside

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Introduction and Specifications

ASUS recently refreshed its 7-inch MeMO Pad 7 tablet with Intel’s new Atom Z3745 Bay Trail-based processor. Having overcome its rocky start, the latest generation of Atom processors is building a reputation for power efficiency and computational chops. Despite its early days in ill-fated netbooks, today's Atom looks to be a good fit for tablets and smartphones and sports new-found graphics horsepower that is up to the task for these types of devices.

We checked out the ASUS MeMO Pad 7 ME176C, which comes in at a relatively affordable $149.99, in light of competing tablets in this category.

The quad-core Intel Z3745 chip sets the stage for the rest of the components in the tablet. The processor runs at up to 1.86GHz and features integrated Intel HD graphics as well. The MeMO Pad 7 is one of the first retail-ready tablets to run the Bay Trail Atom processor.

The CPU is backed up by 1GB of memory, which is a little light – most of the tablets we’ve tested recently included at least 2GB of memory. Then again, those tablets have generally been much more expensive (as in, hundreds of dollars more), so softer specs are a given, here. With that in mind, the tablet has a mere 16GB of internal storage, compared to the 32GB or 64GB of storage in some devices. That’s less of an issue if you have a micro SD card on hand though; the MeMO Pad 7 supports up to 64GB micro SD cards via a slot on its side.

Like previous versions of the tablet, the MeMO Pad 7 has a 7-inch display. If you’ve handled an 8-inch tablet, you might miss the extra screen real estate, but it’s a quality display, especially at this price point. It uses IPS technology for wide viewing angles (critical for tablets) and it has a smudge-resistant coating that is meant to reduce fingerprints.

The tablet also has a micro USB port (for the power adapter) and a headphone/mic jack, as well as basic b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity and GPS. There is a 2MP camera at the front, and the 5MP camera at the back has autofocus capabilities. It can also record 1080p video.

The MeMO Pad 7 is available in blue, black, red, white, and yellow. As we mentioned earlier, it lists for $149.99, making it a very affordable tablet. It’s also very light, at only 0.65 pounds.